


You Should See My Cuts of Cheese

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:19:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6402556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur would say he was doing pornography, but, well, he's not sure what he's doing is actually arousing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Should See My Cuts of Cheese

**Author's Note:**

  * For [2impostors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/2impostors/gifts).



> Detectivelyd posted a photo on Twitter and was like, "What is this?" and I was like, "It's a fic prompt, is what it is."
> 
> (Also, everything I know about modeling I learned from ANTM, so, also that.)

Arthur wanted to be doing high fashion. And he was convinced he was going to get there, someday. It was coming. Someday he would be clad in beautiful fabrics, wear dashing coats that snapped around his ankles as he walked, slim trousers that would show off proper tailoring. 

For the time being, though, Arthur would have been content to work his way up to catalog modeling. Arthur was doing the sort of modeling he’d never even known existed before finding exactly how far done the bottom rung was. Arthur wasn’t even sure what the name of this modeling _was_. 

He’d say it was pornography, but, well, he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on was...arousing. 

“No, no,” the photograph was shouting at him. “You’re obscuring the cheese too much! We need it to catch the light more!”

Arthur refused to apologize because, well, how were you supposed to highlight a cheese you were being told to _cut on someone’s chest_?

“Are we trying to sell the cheese,” Arthur muttered, “or your washboard abs?” 

“Thank you for the compliment, darling,” said the man carefully sprawled out underneath Arthur’s hands, clad only in a pair of jeans and a distracting peek of purple waistband. “But you shouldn’t take your own abs out of the running there. We could equally be selling yours.” 

Arthur sighed, being reminded anew of his own shirtlessness. “What kind of porn is this?” 

“What makes you think it’s porn?” asked the other model. 

“Hold the knife more _sexily_!” commanded the photographer. 

“Stuff like that,” said Arthur drily. “Who the fuck cuts cheese with a fucking saber?” 

“It’s supposed to be phallic, I think. Your phallic knife thrusting into my...cheese.” 

Arthur lifted an eyebrow at him. “And that’s sexy?” 

The man looked back at him evenly. “Not when you’re jerking it about like that, no. Find your stroke, darling.” 

Arthur hmphed and absolutely did not try to slice his block of cheese more sexily, because this whole thing was just ridiculous. 

The photographer said, “That’s it! Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“I’d say,” purred the other model. 

***

Arthur put his clothes back on and contemplated what sort of alcoholic drink would make him forget most quickly that he had just spent the afternoon cutting cheese sexily on another man’s chest. 

“So,” said the other model. He was dressed now as well. Out of the jeans and into a pair of pleated trousers and a hideous shirt. 

Arthur said, “Now I see why you had to be shirtless for me to want to cut cheese on you.” 

The other model smiled at him. He really had the most obscene pair of lips. “You strip all the sex from it when you say it like that.” 

“There wasn’t sex in it in the first place.” 

“ _You_ put sex in it, darling, I must say. I think it’s those dimples you try to hide. I’m Eames.” 

Arthur hesitated. He wanted to get out of this place--this particular place, this rung of the modeling industry, all of it--but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to, well, smile back when a man with lips like that (and abs like that) smiled at you. And, well, seemed to think you were sexy. Because of your silly dimples, somehow. “I’m Arthur,” he said. 

“Arthur, darling,” said Eames, “before you dash out of here to Hermes and Valentino and the pages of Vogue, do you think you might like to grab a drink?” 

Arthur pretended his heart wasn’t fluttering wildly in his chest, because he didn’t often get propositioned, he more often got told he was cool and standoffish. And he never got propositioned with flattery about Hermes and Valentino and Vogue. And also, there was the fact that Eames was fucking hot. So Arthur pretended to very calmly consider this offer. Arthur said, “Will there be cheese slicing involved?” 

Eames said, “Only after we’ve established safe words. I’m always very diligent when it comes to my cheese slicing.”

That shouldn’t have made Arthur smile; Arthur shouldn’t have found that charming. But it did, and he did. “I like that in a guy,” said Arthur. 

“And my saber’s very clean,” Eames continued. 

“Excellent.”

“It’s top-drawer dishwasher-safe, so it gets very thoroughly--”

“Not sexy,” Arthur said, shaking his head, but he knew he was still smiling. 

But it was okay, because Eames was smiling, too. Eames was watching him like he was delighted, and Arthur felt himself blushing. Arthur didn’t normally get _delight_  as a reaction, he didn’t know what to do in the face of it. “Yeah,” said Eames, warm and impossible, “not one of my better ones. Why don’t we start with a drink? And you can tell me where you learned such excellent saber technique.”

“Better,” said Arthur, as lightly as he could, as if everything about this situation wasn’t _better_ , somehow, than everything that had come before in his life. 

“I work my way up to the really quality double entendres. I don’t want you to come over all light-headed.” 

“Gracious of you,” managed Arthur. 

“I am very generous. You should see my cuts of cheese,” said Eames. 

It was really, oddly, the best line Arthur had ever heard. 


End file.
